It’s time to stop

I’m waaaaaaaay overdue for a break from the big stuff … both self-inflicted and incidental.

The past few months have been HUGE.

In the last fortnight alone there’s been my 50th birthday party, my dad’s spinal surgery, the youngest’s triple birthday celebration, scrambling around for a gift for my ex’s birthday and DD’s big move.

My role in DD’s big move kicked off within hours of clearing the debris from the youngest’s pool party and knocked me for a six over the next 24 hours.

He’s still in the thick of it, unpacking the new place and scrubbing the old. I have no idea how he’s still standing.

Moving house really exposes the weak spots of being a single parent and working full time (and in DD’s case, travelling overseas at least once a month). DD’s old place was crammed with accumulated stuff he never had time to sort out.

There was so much it had spilled out onto both the back and front verandahs, huddled under old rugs and jammed into garbage bags. Luckily there’s a double garage at his new place to hide it until he has a chance to get organised.

In a perfect world DD is a neat freak, but the single parent world is very imperfect one.

Running an entire household singlehandedly is a big unpaid job on top of the paid one one you spend eight hours a day doing. There’s the cleaning, the washing, the cooking, the gardening, the sorting, the child taxi service duty, the bill paying etc etc

And there’s no partner to help shoulder the burden, whatever the stats on how uneven the housework load can be in marriages.

DD and I have decided not to join forces on the home front for the foreseeable future, crazy as that sometimes seems. The weight of solo responsibility – physical, emotional and financial – often feels like I’m trying to function in heavy gravity on Mars.

That’s why my gift from my local mates of a spring clean by a professional cleaner is such a blissful one … I just need to clear out my crap first.

A chunk of Easter will be spent going through the contents of a huge shelving unit in the eldest’s room. It was previously in the “playroom” at my old house and the drawers have not been touched since.

We’re going to search for treasures and toss the rest, then finally get the eldest a desk for homework and art projects. Once that’s done, it’s just bits and bobs in every other room and the place will be cleared for cleaning action.

I’m determined there will be plenty of time for play too over the Easter break. Some ocean dips during the last days of warm weather, a glass of wine or two on DD’s new deck, that kind of thing.

I’m also taking a break from the blog for the four days – it’s time to stop and smell the roses instead of writing about them.

What are your Easter plans? I hope you’re plotting something fun.

Song of the day: Madonna “Holiday”